Picture credit
I was sat in the garden yesterday and I saw the most inspiring piece of natural engineering, a spider web.

It was fairly big but the astounding part was the mechanics of how it must have bridged this gap between my fence and the side of my house. I’m not the most technically minded person but I really struggle to envisage how a tiny spider could make such an effective trap over two distant points.

This got me thinking how it relates to BJJ and remarkably it does.

Everyone knows what a spider web looks like but what struck me about this web were all the little extra bits that the spider needed to construct to keep the web functional and effective – little off shoots and structures to keep everything together.

It’s these extra bits which really define whether the web survives or not and it’s the extra bits of your game which determine if you’ll survive something more deadly than wind and rain and that is change. (more…)

Have you ever looked down at your one of you socks and wondered why one had a hole in and the other didn’t? Or subsequently that the said hole was created by your toe to escape?

If not then you obviously don’t have a very vivid imagination, jovial ambiguity or maybe you just don’t have holes in your socks. The point I’m making is that sometimes it’s worth looking at things from a different angle and not assuming that the obvious is the right or wrong answer.

Guided by opulence and a hunger for shiny techniques a lot of athlete’s magpie themselves whole arsenals of submissions, sweeps, combinations, throws etc which is great but the problem is that athletes can then train with Negative attachment. What I’m talking about is that almost all athletes at one time or another roll, spar and sometimes even drill with this ominous cloud of negativity and without knowing it this pervasive mindset can severely affect your training. (more…)

I stumbled across the clip below on Youtube whilst looking for another clip of an Anaconda constricting its prey. The reason for such a search was because my earliest conceptual idea for BJJ came whilst watching a wildlife show. (more…)

Although Gary Coleman might be inspirational for some, if we’re talking BJJ – a great inspiration for me is Garry Kasparov.

Kasparov epitomises everything that a good grappler should be. His intellectual prowess, the way he played chess and his prolonged dominance over his peers – was and still is truly inspirational.

It’s not just him as a person but the game of chess on a whole which draws so much inspiration. BJJ concepts like Patience points, Tidal movement, 90% positions, Red herrings and calculated sacrifice (See the concepts page.) are all straight out of the chess arena and translate neatly into a conceptual BJJ game.

So it only seems fitting that we as BJJ aficionados take influence and reference from arguably the greatest player of all time, playing the most intellectual game ever invented. (more…)

Before we start getting into deep philosophical debates about Conceptual BJJ, I thought I’d formally dispel any pretension surrounding my pedigree as an ‘expert’ on conceptual BJJ.

I believe that whether you’ve been training for months or years you can bring something to the table in terms of understanding anything and that’s why I started this Blog.

I don’t believe to be an expert but I do have ideas, thoughts and a belief in my understanding, so please bear this in mind. I’m still learning and although I feel compelled to share my thoughts, do understand that they’re still in the early stages of development.

I actively encourage that whoever you are that you can help me, and in turn yourself, build a greater understanding of your game.